Cruel Irony
by Avengingdemigod
Summary: Diana saved Steve from drowning in more ways than she could ever realize, that fateful day on the beach. Steve reflects on his life before and after Diana barged into it.


Steve Trevor isn't sure when the thought first occurs to him. Maybe it's the day after his parents' deaths, when he felt closer than them than to the living. Or maybe it's when the cold numbness cracks and his grief pounds into him, months later. It's probably what spurred him to join the military in the first place, the cause of his parents' death. But the thought builds on him, permeating his days of agony and nights of terror, until he's overwhelmed with the realization that he doesn't want to live anymore. He purposely tries to keep his distance from the other men, tries not to make any friends e, focusing only on his duties. That gets him more missions, until nearly every day he wakes up embracing the idea that it could be his last.

A couple times, he's thought about taking his own life-he has no shortage of weapons around him with which to commit suicide. But Steve wants to leave a mark, be a war hero and honor his parents who sacrificed so much for freedom. He wants to go out saving someone else's life, someone who has a life and a home waiting for them. Sometimes he sees the other men in the barracks writing letters, desperate hopes lighting those foolish eyes. Those are the ones that he needs to save, the ones who are too dumb to realize the dangers of war, but who have other people waiting for them to walk through the door. The idea becomes so ingrained that sometimes he wonders who he'll save, who'll be able to return back home. When he's not sprinting towards danger, Steve tries not to wonder what that's like.

Then his smoke starts trailing out of his plane after a spy mission and Steve's suddenly flying under a blue sky, so strikingly beautiful after the gray clouds of Germany that he wonders if he's hallucinating. A pang of regret hits him, when he realizes he's going to die without saving anyone else or getting the notebook to the Allies, but mostly he feels a relief, to finally be able to leave this world and join his parents in the next. Almost a comfort, like finding something he'd been searching for suddenly appear before him. He sees the water surface rushing up to meet him, shining like a precious sapphire in the uncommonly bright sun. Steve lets the water overtake him. Despite the automatic reaction to struggle against the salt water filling his lungs, his coat weighs him down and he feels so _heavy_.

Then there's a flurry of motion in front of him that looks like a person. His mind is so detached and starved of oxygen that nothing really registers until he's coughing on a beach with the most beautiful woman he's ever seen staring down at him, proclaiming that he's a man. And even then, everything moves so quickly afterwards that Steve has no time to wonder.

He feels like some moments must be snapshots out of someone else's life, his own life being completely upended by this female warrior, this _Diana_. Diana carrying her sword and barging straight into the war council. The deep determination in her eyes when she reminds him, "You made a deal with me." Her happiness and surprise at a simple cone of ice cream. An aura of something powerful but familiar surrounds her that Steve can't quite identify, but he'd almost call it magic.

Diana is changing him, he can tell. But Steve doesn't realize how much, until in a brief flash of insight that might have been the color of the snow shining on her dark hair. Dancing with her in front of that fountain, drinking in the triumph of their victory, Steve realizes that he feels _happy_ , filled with a euphoria that he hasn't felt in a long time.

"What do people do when there's no war?" she asks him while they sway.

He blinks, a little surprised, because it's hard to remember a time without the war stealing away all his time and energy. But she hasn't been ensconced in this conflict for as long as he has-she doesn't know any life in this world without the war. He thinks about showing her newspapers, and enjoying her reaction to any of the modern inventions that Themyscira didn't seem to have. He doesn't even notice how the burden of death has slipped from his shoulders, how life appears sparkling in color again. A rookie mistake, one that he gladly luxuriates in for the time being. But a mistake nonetheless, because it makes it so much more painful later.

The imminent danger of war reminds him later of the wisdom and impossibility of his old detachment. He was nearly breathless with fear at the thought of Diana being trapped in that ballroom with Ares, trying to pretend in a game she could never win. Diana was too honest, too good to ever be a spy like him. And then she pushes away from his protection, and all the plans spins out of his control with Diana herself, galloping off to kill a god. The war fills his nose with smoke and eyes with the bright orange of poison, choking him as he tries to follow Diana and keep everyone alive. Including himself, this time. Until he finds himself in a plane full of explosives.

So Steve laughs a little at the cruel irony of the universe, this massive joke played on him. Because finally his old death wishes are fulfilled. Finally, he has the perfect opportunity to sacrifice for others and save hundreds of people, to rejoin his parents. But he can feel the desire to live rise up in him like before, can feel the automatic rejection coursing through the blood that pumps out of his chest. He knows he's fallen prey to those dangerous emotions of hope and desperation, but he can't help it. There's no Diana to save him this time, though, and for a selfish moment, he wishes that he wasn't in that plane, didn't have to choose other people's lives over his own. The gun in his hand trembles, and Steve looks back at the explosives sitting innocently behind him. Each so small, but unimaginably destructive in more ways than one. It's far more painful than he'd expected, feeling the life that could have been being ripped away with every ticking second. Steve takes a deep breath, thinks of Diana's fierce bravery to shore up his own courage, and fires the bullet.

Time slows down til each millisecond is an eternity. His eyes are still focused ahead on the black sky, but he can hear the bullet shoot through the air and find its mark on a canister. With a _pop_ of metal, the other weapons denote, and the heat of the explosion roars at his back as it ruptures the plane. Suddenly he's no longer in the cockpit, pushed outside into the forbidding sky. The biting night air would sting his skin, except he's engulfed in flame and oily smoke. _A_ fter so long diving towards death, and here it is, waiting for him all along.

A familiar face materializes out of the chaos, the smile and outstretched hand of his mother waiting for him. An bright angel lit up like the inferno of the plane, conjured for him just as he'd longed for years. But the angel warrior on the ground still pulls on his heart, filling his eyes with regret. He closes his eyes, pushing his last thoughts toward Diana. "I love you. I wish we had more time," he whispers into the night. He recalls the watch he'd pressed into her hands, and hopes she understands what he meant. Below him, her scream of agony rips his heart apart.

Steve Trevor takes his last breath, Diana's face flashing once more before his eyes before the embrace of his mother claims him.


End file.
